First in a series. See further budget breakdowns by departments in upcoming editions.

Ridgecrest's city council drummed up a plan of attack for tackling the 2013-2014 fiscal year budget at a special council meeting Monday.

Interim City Manager Dennis Speer outlined several straightforward goals for the city to consider in its need to address a potential $1.3 million deficit to the FY 2014.

Speer pointed out the purpose of the budget strategy meeting was to set goals, not crunch hard numbers.

Speer said some of the perspectives the city and council should consider included the state budget impacts, increased unemployment, increasing commercial property vacancies and declining retail sales, to name a few.

“The economy has significantly impacted residents and businesses,” Speer said. “Local revenues are down and it will take several years to recover.”

If the trend continues as it has in the past, the city would face $1.3 million minimum in cuts for FY 2014. However, he stressed that it was a rough number and would not be determined until all the numbers were available.

Speer, who is responsible for setting the pace for the city budget, indicated that the ball was already rolling for a city budget timeline.

The parameters in tackling the budget would include addressing the general fund, special revenue funds that have special sources with special purposes, enterprise funds used for business purposes and the internal service funds used for transactions within the city.

A few goals would include reformatting a budget, a baseline budget with a separate Measure L additive – an item long requested by the community – and eliminating as many of the internal service funds as possible.

“The problem is in the general fund and the solution must come from the general fund,” Speer said.

Speer highlighted the main principles the city should consider include sufficiently funding core operations, maintain a commitment to quality service, user partnerships were feasible, not paying for recurring expenses with onetime money, and funding the highest-priority city services first.

The overall budget strategy included making targeted cuts instead of the across-the-board cuts applied to in December.

The entire council expressed its thanks to Speer for compiling the presentation before going into detail on the budget.

Both Mayor Pro Tem Jason Patin and Vice Mayor Chip Holloway voiced their appreciation for the need to making systematic cuts instead of cutting across the whole board.

“We need to put it out there right now that fairness is not going to be part of this process,” Holloway said. “To do a proper budget that is effective and long term, we need to do systematic cuts and not across-the-board cuts and we need to look at the operational expense.”

Page 2 of 3 - Patin echoed Holloway's comments, and also capitalized on the mention of not paying ongoing expenses with onetime money.

“That seems to have been a habit for the city for a long time and I think that is a huge no-no,” Patin said. “I think one time money is used for good things, not balancing the budget.”

When mentioning that no services would be untouched, Patin commented that would be true.

“I don't think it will be fair in the eyes of many departments, but there are certain things that have to be taken care of first,” he said. “There are certain things that cannot falter or go to the wayside.”

He said parks and recreation would be a hard one to consider specifically, and had to separate the two. The recreation side was one issue that required more discussion, but Patin was straightforward on the parks side.

Parks was not only a quality of life issue, but public safety and economic development as well.

“If you want economic growth, you're not going to establish that by killing parks,” Patin said. “You don't bring things in with a broken down infrastructure or poor public safety.”

Holloway both the expenses and the revenue side should be explored in the budget process.

“We cannot cut ourselves to prosperity,” Holloway said.

Holloway suggested perhaps once the budget process came back to the public, Finance Director Rachelle McQuiston could present a five-year history of “how the general fund has been under attack” from the state.

Councilwoman Lori Acton said that some alternatives needed to be looked at for parks and recreation, as well as an emphasis on maintaining the current infrastructure, especially if it came to benefiting in the next round of base closures and realignment.

“If we have no parks and we aren't taking care of our infrastructure as well, I don't see us doing very well in maintaining because who wants to come to a desert community that looks that way,” Acton said.

During public comment, former councilman Jerry Taylor thanked the council for going forward with the budget.

He hoped that the council and city manager would address what their anticipations and expectations would be regarding the upcoming city budget, especially the revenue side.

“Talk about (transient occupancy taxes) and make those broad assumptions so that you have that baseline for what those budget revenues will be,” Taylor said. “If you don't understand your revenue, you can't set a budget to what your balance should be on expenditures.”

He said TOTs and sales taxes would change while property taxes might remain stable.

Page 3 of 3 - Holloway asked Taylor if there was a potential with the Navy furloughing its employees that there would be more people spending in town.

“Do you think there is a potential that we will retain more income in the city of Ridgecrest because people will leave less?” Holloway asked.

Taylor said he could not give a definitive answer.

“I don't think you should count on it,” Taylor said. “If anything it is a very small windfall for a very short time period of time. “

Taylor also argued that as much as trying to sell Ridgecrest for people moving here, it was also important to sell it to the people who were already living in the city.

“I've talked to people who are retirement eligible and it is amazing how many people are bailing,” he said.

Andy Anderson recommended it was possible to cut the salaries of some of the higher echelons of city administration, and possibly save some lower level staff in the process.

Tom Wiknich asked if the $1.3 million included Measure L revenue and if it were included, would it reduce the number.

Mayor Dan Clark clarified that the city would attempt a balanced budget prior to deciding whether to add Measure L funds later.

Wiknich also suggested polling the community through the city website and through Daily Independent and News Review newspapers.

“Ask what the priorities of the people are,” Wiknich said. “If you really want the public's input, go out and ask it.”

Howard Auld recommended keeping the whole budget discussions simple.

“What are revenues, what are your obligations and what are your problems,” he said. “I think this would hear a lot, because when we hear that we cannot maintain our parks then we need to look for a solution.”

He put Pinney Pool up as an example, which is recommended for closure as one a few possible solutions for the Parks and Recreation department cuts.

“We need to go to the people and ask for their help,” Auld said. “We can put together a real team and I am sure there are people willing to help because it is such an important facility to our community.”